Former Congressman Zach Wamp who endorsed Manny Sethi for the United States Senate this week has previously leveled harsh criticisms at U.S. President Donald Trump.
But members of Sethi’s campaign say Wamp supports Trump.
In a 2015 tweet, Wamp called Trump “a sore loser,” a “hypocrite,” and said Trump “should never be president of our country.”
More proof that Donald Trump is a sore loser, hypocrite and should never be President of our country. https://t.co/aBqdD2EPKL
— Zach Wamp (@zachwamp) December 27, 2015
A 2016 Chattanoogan article quoted Wamp, then reportedly the Tennessee chairman for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, as calling Trump a “wild man” whom he does not trust.
“He’s been all over the place all of his life. If he gets in, I have no idea what’s he going to do, and I worry about the world,” Wamp reportedly said of Trump.
“I’ve been in this business a long, long time and I believe our public servants should not be entertainers. This is not the Kardashians. They should be people who have done something great for humanity.”
Wamp reportedly said if Trump was the Republican nominee then “Hillary Clinton will win the White House. And it will be a generation before the Republicans will be able to elect another president.”
But Wamp said on his Twitter account this week that he sees the good and the bad in Trump — but he also called Trump’s warnings of a rigged 2020 election “sheer lunacy.”
https://twitter.com/IOWamp/status/1275029831462326284
The Tennessee Star asked Sethi’s campaign in an email about Wamp’s past statements.
The campaign’s response:
“Bill Hagerty gave Mitt Romney (the only Republican to vote to remove President Trump) $100,000 and supported Romney over Fred Thompson. If Hagerty and Ward Baker want to compare whose supporters are most conservative and who supports the President, we’ll do that but they won’t like it. Zach Wamp is a real conservative who supports the president.”
Wamp served in the U.S. Congress, representing Tennessee’s Third District from 1995 through 2011.
“There are three reasons why I am endorsing Dr. Manny Sethi for Senate,” Wamp said in an emailed press release this week.
“He is the true conservative in this race, and he will stand for fiscal responsibility when so many others have buckled. He is authentic and he will represent the people of Tennessee, not the establishment, in every decision he makes. Finally, he belongs to a new generation of conservatives who have the chance to lead our country to greater freedom and prosperity. We need more political outsiders and citizen legislators like Dr. Manny Sethi in the U.S. Senate, and that is why I am proud to endorse him.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Zach Wamp” by Issue One Action.
